Five years
by closed-account-no-updates
Summary: Set during DH. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Ginny Weasley's relationship over a few years, starting at a simple comment: You would be an excellent auror. When Harry is away and life too harsh, maybe there is some place for some unexpected romance.
1. Discussions over a cup of tea

_Notes: Kingsley/Ginny... A strange pairing, I guess. Set during DH and after, so beware of spoilers.  
Also, please forgive my English. I'm unfortunately a french writer. _

**Five years**

**1. Discussions over a cup of tea**

- 'I cannot stress it enough: I'm not into little girls.'

Kingsley's slow voice echoed through the Tonks's living room, followed by an uncomfortable silence. Nymphadora, totally herself with her flashy pregnancy dress and orange socks, shifted in her seat. She was clearly uneasy, as indicated the faint loss of color of her vivid pink hair. On the table, her cup of raspberry flavored tea was slowly going cold.

- 'I wasn't implying you...'

- 'That's exactly what you were implying, and I assure you I would throw myself into Azkaban if I ever indulged in thoughts of _that_ kind. The girl is SIXTEEN. While it's no problem for you to marry someone Remus's age, it...'

- 'HEY! Stop it, stop it, stop it', shouted the younger auror, her hair now tomato red. She jumped to her feet, and, in typical Nymphadora Tonks fashion, promptly tripped. It had to be belly first, too, and Kingsley caught her by the shoulders to prevent her from landing flat on the floor. She looked suitably miffed, pouted for a few seconds, then calmed down and sank back into the sofa. 'Don't get all offended like that, Shacklebolt! I said you were looking at her, not that you were, err, _looking_. Why the drama?'

He sighed. It was not the best thing to do, and his colleague stared at him as if her eyes could have drilled an hole in his head to get hold of his thoughts.

- 'Unless you are, of course', she added.

- 'For God's sake, Tonks! I am NOT!'

She crossed her arms and mimicked Andromeda's coldest expression. As nice as her mother was, the woman still had the Black's features, and didn't have to try very hard to manage menacing looks that could put Bellatrix to shame. With the metamorphmagus's uncanny skills for imitation, the result was about perfect.

- 'Then what's your problem?', she asked.

- 'It's just getting quite tiring. The Weasley twins cornered me with the same accusations - they are becoming a tad suspicious, I'll have you know, since the "ministry employees" that knocked at their door felt the need to be a tad too close to the girl. Just to check if she was hiding "illegal items".'

- 'They DID?'

- 'I heard she kneed one of them in the balls. She's hardly the helpless kind.'

- 'Six brothers, that's to be expected', commented Tonks while casting a warming charm over her tea. She took a sip, grimaced, and put the cup back on the table. 'My god, it couldn't taste any worse.'

- 'I wouldn't know, Tonks, I do not understand how you can drink the stuff in the first place. To be honest, I wouldn't consider anything you described as "tasty" in the four last months as even remotely edible. Pregnancy is messing with you. A lot.'

- 'Well, I can't wait to be hooked on the junk we aurors call food again!", she joked. 'Hot-dogs and coffee, just what I need to get back in shape!'

She was maybe a little bitter about her new figure, though Kingsley wasn't worried about her ability to go back to the svelte, slightly muscled body he had seen so many times while she was training. A large part of the aurors were men, and proper clothing wasn't really the primary concern of most of the female recruits: harder training was, as well as the occasional arse-kicking of the disrespectful peers. The calm, orderly life of their office in the ministry, reassuring to the public eye, had nothing in common with the hard reality of the bloody battles and the roughness of the training. Clumsy as she was, Maugrey's favourite had broken her fair share of noses (some by accident), knocked out a respectable quantity of teeth, and crushed just enough testicles (death eather's, of course) with the hard soles of her combat boots to be considered a brilliant young auror. She would have no difficulty at regaining her natural weight, anyway: metamorphmagus had some clear advantages over the rest of the human species.

- 'But, let's not forget the topic.', she said. 'Back on the girl, Kingsley.'

Ginevra had probably been "the girl" since the day of her birth. The Weasley girl, the girl going out with Harry Potter, the girl Tom Riddle possessed. Now she was "the girl" for the order, as Tonks, with her protruding belly and the ring on her finger, had been promoted to "Mrs. Lupin". Hermione granger, currently "the missing one", roamed the country with her best friends. Ginevra was the last kid left.

Away from school, she spent most of her time in the garden of the Burrow, pretending to "practice her school lessons". As far as Kingsley was concerned, it looked more like relentless battle training - not that effective without a proper opponent, but the spirit was there. Her family would never allow her to fight, obviously, but she was not likely to comply to such orders.

Every now and then, passing by to report the latest news or just to catch Potterwatch on the Weasley's radio, he had stopped to watch the teenager, and even dropped her a few tips. Molly had promptly warned him "not to encourage her to be reckless", but in a fairly uncharacteristic move, he had done way more.

- 'I'm trying to convince her to become an auror, if we ever take the ministry back.'

- 'Are you _insane_? Her mother is going to throttle you!'

- 'Oh, don't worry, I am quite aware of that. I got my first tongue-lashing a few weeks ago, but I cannot help thinking the girl has everything one needs for the job."

Tonks gaped.

- 'Are you pushing a sheltered, last-born little girl to try _our_ job?'

Shacklebolt cast a look at his empty cup of tea, and filled it with a flick of the wand.

- 'Indeed, I am.'

- 'She'd have to be crazy to consider it. I mean, you need to be masochistic just to complete the three years of training, what with the crazy nutcases we have as teachers... And then there's the dark magic, the morbid jokes, the risks, the work, the... Ah, no, wait, that was just me being stupid. She would be perfect.'

- 'Yes, she would', replied her friend. He took a sip of tea. 'But don't worry. She is not interested. Professional quidditch is better, or so she says.'

- 'Cleaning toilets is a better job, Kingsley. We only love being aurors because our mind isn't wired the right way.'

- 'If you say so.'

- 'Oh! He's moving again', exclaimed the young woman, looking down with a smile of delight. 'Actually, he mostly moves at night, he doesn't like it when I try to sleep. But I'll live through it.'

Kingsley tried to summon some courage, and did his best to come up with suitable comments to the long baby themed monologue that followed.

_To be continued..._


	2. Anger and chocolate

**Five years**

**2. Anger and chocolate**

- 'The password is _Albus_? Out of all the names in the world, out of all the potential passwords, you went for _Albus_?'  
Ginevra was sitting on a chair next to the fireplace, staring in disbelief at her brothers. A few seconds before, she had been laying on her back on the carpet, and prior to that, gliding back and forth between the sofa and the floor. She was restless. While some teenagers tended to be about as active as the common slug, she had never lost the childish energy mostly expected of a five years old. The nervous movements were annoying, excessive and - Kingsley had to admit it - slightly hypnotic. He had been watching the girl for ten good minutes and was idly wondering if she was actually able to stay put. It was probably an one time occurance, though. The worst pouring rain of the season had locked her inside the house for the whole weekend, and the boredom seemingly drove the "future quidditch star" to temporary insanity.  
The auror forced himself to look at his cup of tea, and went back to waiting Arthur's return.  
- 'Well, Potterwatch is mostly about providing comic relief to the poor souls crushed by the ongoing war', explained George in an overly lecturing tone.  
- 'You'd be aware of that if you actally listened to it every once in a while', added Fred, though his attempt at a pompous tone ended in a fit of laughter.  
Ginny climbed back on the sofa, where she curled up like a cat.  
- 'So _that_ would explain the obvious passwords and ludicrous nicknames? You actually MEANT too sound like toddlers trying to be subtle?', she commented.  
Both her brothers winced.  
- 'Now that was harsh', said George.  
- 'True, too. I mean, Romulus? Rapier? Royal? River... And I'm just noticing that trend with the "R"s, what about it? Anyway, I don't see the point of having codenames if they're that blatant. I doubt it was to fool the death eaters, except if you based the whole plan on Crabbe's intellect.'  
In front of this heavy dose of teenage angst, Kingsley - with all his battle experience against werewolves, giants and dark wizards - felt the urge to recoil. It was possibly contagious.  
Molly, who had been cleaning the kitchen, called her daughter from that room.  
- 'Will you stop that right now, Ginevra Weasley? You are being rude.'  
- 'You are being a bitch', corrected Fred in a muffled voice.  
- 'You are being tickled', added the other twin.  
He caught the girl by the hips and she collapsed into laughter as his hands started to move over her. For a while, the three of them rolled on the floor, a mass of legs and arms waving the air. Then, Molly came back with five mugs of hot milk and chocolate powder.  
- 'Why don't you just all calm down?', she asked the kids, shaking her head. 'This late in the evening...'  
- 'Sorry, Mom', replied George, who joined them at the table and helped himself to the cocoa.  
His sibling followed, and soon they were just discussing, thankfully still.  
- 'She had to be punished. Not appreciating our war efforts, a shame', said Fred. 'You'd believe she'd give us at least some credit. Listening just once wouldn't kill her.'  
Ginevra frowned sightly.  
- 'I just didn't see the point of hearing the same news over and over again. It's not as if the order wasn't the first to know everything, and it's always ages before you can announce them on radio.'  
- 'Well, you are missing our awesome comments.'  
- 'There's this basilisk joke we've been keeping for the next broadcast...'  
- 'And then, of course, Kingsley is just great, too. The guy always knows how to motivate people. The right words, the right tone, everything, he'll end up minister of magic for sure.'  
"The guy" replied to this half-faked appreciation with a dismissive nod.  
- 'Thank you, Fred.'  
- 'Okay, you win, I'll listen.'  
The girl didn't sound that convinced. She was rolling her eyes and her frown was still tracing a deep crease between her eyebrows. George was the first to react.  
- 'Why, thank you! Could you be anymore enthusiastic? I think your tone just froze Australia.'  
- 'Oh, excuse-me, your holeyness', she snapped. 'I'm just _overjoyed_ at the idea of having to hear the list of dead people again. Not to mention the thrilling news about Harry. "He is probably alive. I think. Saw him a few weeks ago, he seemed fine. Planned to run after You-Know-Who, too". Professor Lupin is just so good at being reassuring, a sinistros coudln't beat him. If he tried just a little harder, we'd all consider suicide.'  
- 'Do notice, Kingsley, that she's more concerned about her boyfriend that about her own brother.'  
The auror pretended to be affected by temporary deafness. He didn't want to be implied in that kind of war.  
- 'Well, we DO know Ron is alive', snapped Ginny, pointing at the family clock. 'That much cannot be said about Hermione and Harry.'  
- 'BE QUIET', shouted Molly. 'Ginny, go to your room. It's past midnight and you should be sleeping already. I'll wake you up when your father comes back from Andromeda's house. Fred, George...'  
Her aggravated stare was explicit enough: the twins promptly closed their mouth and diverted their attention to the ceiling. Their sister sighed and raised from her chair.  
- 'Alright, good night everyone... Goodbye, mister Shacklebolt.'  
- 'Such a lovely young lady', noted George as soon as she had left the room. 'No wonder Harry ran away, I feel sorry for the poor sod.'  
- 'Enough', cut Molly. She sighed. 'You'll have to excuse her, Kingsley. She has been infuriating lately, I don't know what's possessing her.'  
It was an obvious lie, but Kingsley accepted it and replied accordingly:  
- 'It's alright. We have all been teenagers.'  
Of course, while the age of the girl was probably one of the reasons for her foul temper, Shacklebolt knew there was more to it. Tonks herself had been fairly tense when Remus decided to disappear, prevented as she was from being even remotely useful by the unborn little Teddy and by a Bellatrix Lestrange bent on killing her. Ginevra's situation wasn't as extreme as being left behind by one's husband while pregnant, but there was still some kind of pattern: a young, active woman abandoned for noble (and moderately intelligent) reasons by a panicky Gryffindor. Harry Potter's "It will keep you safe until the end of the war" was about as credible as Remus's excuses, as both Tonks and Ginny were bound to escape their forced safety to join the fight. Molly's careful attempts to protect her daughter seemed useless, and Kingsley was glad to see the girl train on her own. A good aim and some knowledge of the best defensive spells were more likely to save her life.  
Noticing the fifth mug of milk was meant to be his, he took it and added a few spoons of chocolate to his. The liquid was now lukewarm, but he didn't mind.  
- 'She is just restless. I know Bill has been tutoring her. I'm here often enough, I could help her with her lessons every now and then.'  
And teach her the safest ways to maim a death eather, he added mentally.  
- 'That would be awfully nice, Kingsley', replied Molly while the twins glared at him.  
- 'And if she can master some housing protection charms, we could take her with us when we go to muggle villages to secure them. Those missions are basically risk-free', he added. "So..."  
A knock at the door interrupted him: Arthur was finally back.

To be continued.


End file.
